Reviewed by Sarina

TITLE: Finding Release

SERIES: Wild R Farm #1

AUTHOR: Silvia Violet

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 196 pages

RELEASE DATE: December 9, 2012

BLURB:

Coleman Wilder is a half-breed werewolf. Some days the tension between his human side and his werewolf instincts threaten to tear him apart. But the challenge of running a horse farm as a gay man in a conservative Tennessee town keeps him focused until he meets horse shifter, Jonah Marks.

Jonah’s family insists that shifting is sinful, but Jonah longs to let his stallion run free. Desperate to escape his family’s judgment, he asks Cole, his secret crush, for a job. Cole turns him down, scared his desire for Jonah will make him lose control. When Jonah’s brother threatens his life, Cole struggles to save him and give them both a second chance at the life they’ve always wanted.

REVIEW:

I’ve only ever read one other paranormal book that featured a horse shifter so when I saw the blurb and found that Jonah fell into that category, I was immediately interested. The story itself started out interesting enough; you get a general set up for the story where Jonah asks Cole for help but Cole, fearing a loss of control in regards to the younger man, turns him away. Things then move forward a year and you find that Jonah has disappeared and Cole, heartsick and feeling guilty, has changed his outlook and is basically taking in strays, both human and animal, left right and center. When taking in an injured and skittish horse unexpectedly leads Cole back to Jonah, he finds his feelings for the other male impossible to ignore but he’ll have to battle through Jonah’s fear of his family if he wants to have any chance of building a happier future for himself and the one he never should’ve let walk away.

As I said before, I enjoyed the beginning and was looking forward to seeing where the author took the story; I can say it definitely went in a direction I hadn’t anticipated, which was nice because I’m always up for something different like that. Things moved rather quickly after Cole and Jonah are reunited, however, and I’ll be honest and say I didn’t really care for that as much. Jonah is a victim and has lived a horrible, nightmare inducing year; what he really needed was lots of comfort and time to heal so I found the near immediate initiation of sexual relations between him and Cole to be a bit, well, absurd. It certainly didn’t come off as appropriate in any way but, then again, I’m used to the majority of my shifter stories moving kind of fast in that regard. I personally didn’t care for it in this instance, however.

While the threat of Jonah’s brother was present overall there was actually very little in the way of direct confrontation and the story instead focused on the relationship between the two main characters. I really enjoyed actually seeing the issues with Jonah’s brother happening and wish there had been more of it as I felt it provided a more stable story foundation than just watching as Jonah tried to leave to keep everyone safe and Cole persuading him to stay. Shifter culture and just ability to shift seemed a bit different in this universe, which again, nice to see some differences but it would’ve been nice to have seen some kind of explanation instead of trying to get an entire picture off of the random pieces given over the course of the story.

The book was decent and I generally liked it but I did spend nearly the entire read wishing there had been more depth in one way or another; either a stronger leaning towards hurt/comfort or more drama involving Jonah’s family. If you enjoy shifter stories with an easier plot, this could be worth looking into but anyone looking for something featuring stronger characters or more drama probably won’t enjoy it much.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon